


Trippingly on the Tongue

by MelodyMayhew



Series: All Bets Are Off [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Betrayal, Fluff, Found Family, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Incurable romantic, Light Angst, M/M, References to The Speech, Romantic Bastards, mortality angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25410151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodyMayhew/pseuds/MelodyMayhew
Summary: “So,” Andy says, “who did the speech this time?”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: All Bets Are Off [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848640
Comments: 124
Kudos: 2186





	Trippingly on the Tongue

Andy holds up a wedge of twenty-pound notes.

“So,” she says, “who did the speech this time?”

It’s a transparent attempt to break the terrible, awkward silence in the car. Joe is fuming next to her with a bone-tight grip on the wheel, Nile is looking straight ahead, perfecting her thousand-yard thousand-year stare. Bookending her are Booker and Nicky, looking completely miserable.

Andy waves the money impatiently.

“Come on, easy bet.”

Nicky scoffs. “It’s not so easy.”

Andy arches an eyebrow. “Oh really? Cos it seems to me that--”

“Joe,” Booker says softly. “It’s always Joe.”

Nicky yelps, outraged. “It is not  _ always _ Joe.”

A tiny sliver of a smirk tugs at Joe’s face, and Andy relaxes a little.

“He has a point, habibi.”

Nile looks up at that. “ _ Habibi? _ ”

Nicky, ever patient, every wise, turns to her. “It means--”

Nile laughs. “I know what it means. I just, I’ve never heard a man--”

“Say it to another man?” Joe chuckles. “Believe me, I was surprised too. At least, I think I was. Nicolò, was I surprised?”

“When you called me habibi, or when I kissed you in your sleep?”

Nile scrunches her face in confusion, and Andy reaches back to pat her shin.

“Both happened at the same time.” She gives Nile’s knee a sympathetic squeeze. “I’m sure they’ll tell you all about it.”

“She’d be honoured.” Joe wags a finger at the rearview mirror, gently cajoling Nile. “Ours is a love story for the ages.”

“Which is why  _ you _ made the speech,” Booker says. There is too much hope in his voice, though, and Joe shoots him a daggered glare that silences him.

Andy sighs. There is no moving past this. Once they are out of this car, washed and healed, they will have to deal with the mess of Booker’s demons, have to deal with exiling him from the family, have to deal with the bruises she can feel forming on her back and knees and shoulders.

  
She isn’t ready for any of this.

“Well,” she says, forcing the mood to stay light, “put your money where your mouth is.”

Booker grunts, then morosely pulls a billfold from inside his jacket.

“This bet is too easy,” he complains, “where’s the fun?”

“WHAT BET?” Nile exclaims, throwing her hands up in frustration. “Is this -- is this how you guys talk  _ all the time _ ?”

Nicky laughs, delighted. “Yes, it is. I’m so sorry.”

Nile lets her head thump against the back seat. Andy watches Joe and Nicky make fond eye contact in the rearview. Joe purses his lips and winks a kiss at him. Nicky, god help him,  _ catches _ it in his fist and touches his fingers to his mouth.

“Good lord,” Andy says good-naturedly, “who ever heard of a thousand-year honeymoon?”

“I did,” say Joe and Nicky at the exact same time. Nile wrinkles her nose in disgust.

“Am I really stuck with two gay dads for the rest of eternity?”

“Not gay,” Joe says, then takes his right hand off the wheel to reach back for the hand that Nicky has already extended. “Nicolòsexual.”

He kisses Nicky’s fingertips, takes them in his, presses the back of Nicky’s hand to his face.

“You experience love like this, you bask in it forever.”

“Okay,” Nile says, “he made the speech.”

Booker slaps his thigh and Andy lets out a little whoop. “Now you’re getting it!”

“I guess?” Nile tilts her head. “But… also not?”

Nicky smiles his gentle boyish smile and puts a hand on Nile’s arm.

“Every time we are captured, there are always men. Intolerant men.”

“Fucking homophobes,” Joe curses under his breath. “Pieces of shit.”

“And being as we are,” Nicky continues -- ignoring the way Joe tongues the inside of his cheek, “they like to practice their intolerance on us. We have grown very tired of this. So often, we--”

“ _ Joe _ ,” Andy corrects him.  
  


  
“Not always Joe!” Nicky protests. He gives Nile an almost embarrassed look. “There is usually a speech.”

Andy watches over her shoulder as the wheels in Nile’s head turn. Booker is watching too, amused despite himself.

“So you guys just get off on telling bigots where to stick it?”

Joe slaps the wheel.  “Brava! Che genio!”

Booker shakes his head. “It’s more than that. One day you’ll be there for one of them. It’s all poetry and flowers and ‘my moon and heart’. It’s…”

Yesterday, Booker would have said disgusting. Andy knows this all too well. But today, what little lines he has on his face are softened, and he stares forlornly at the back of Joe’s head.

“It’s beautiful.”

The car goes silent again. Andy thinks of all the beautiful moments Booker will miss… and then the ones she soon will too. It’s not fair. She faces straight ahead and bites her lip. Joe looks at her out of the corner of his eye, eyes suddenly soft.

“Okay fine,” he says, playing it up for company, “I gave the speech.”

Nile fist-pumps the air.

“BUT,” Joe raises a finger, “you only win the bet if you can tell me what Nicky said after.”

“Caro mio,” Andy offers.

“Mm-mmn, te adoro,” Booker counters.

“It wasn’t Italian,” Nicky says.

“No hints!”

“We have to guess what Nicky said  _ after _ the speech  _ without _ knowing what Joe said?” Nile crosses her arms and pouts. “Not fair.”

“Is fair,” Nicky replies, “he always says the same thing.”  
  


  
Joe looks horrified. “I do  _ not _ !”

“With words, no, of course not. But with your heart, it is always the same.”

Joe’s face just… melts. “It will always be, my Nicolò.”

“Gross,” Nile says.

“Incurable romantic,” Booker corrects.

Suddenly the car is loud with surprised cheers and hollers. Nicky and Joe look like kids in a candy store.

“MAGNIFICO!” Joe exclaims.

  
Nicky elbows Nile with a laugh. “To the WORD!”

  
He leans across to jostle Booker’s knee, equally proud and fond. Andy laughs and reaches to hand him the money, which he waves off insistently. For a moment, his betrayal has dissolved. It exists somewhere outside this silly bubble in this car, and they are - inside these four doors - a family. Booker chuckles and good-naturedly pats Nicky’s hand.

“He is always the romantic.”

“We’re both romantic!” Nicky and Joe protest in unison.

“I am romantic with my words,” Joe explains, then raises one salacious eyebrow. “Nicky is romantic with his--”

“Stop,” Nile lifts a hand. “Just stop. I get it. I’m gonna have to live centuries with this. Can you at least start with microdosing?”

“I have no idea what that is,” Joe replies. “And no.”

“Our love cannot be made small,” Nicky says. “Not for a century of centuries.”

“See?” Joe says. “Romantic.”

“Honestly,” Andy says, happy if only for a few more minutes. “You act like you invented the word.”

She rests her head back and closes her eyes. She hears rather than feels Joe open his mouth again, and lifts one finger.

“No,” she tells him. “You didn’t.”

Joe makes a protesting huff, but closes his mouth again. A moment later, she feels a hand close over hers.

“This is for you,” he says, very quietly, “not him.”

Andy turns her hand over and laces their fingers. She gives him a squeeze, reminds him that she is still there. At least for now.

“I know,” she replies, just as soft.

Joe smiles and kisses her hand. The exit that they would have normally taken to their customary safehouse looms large in the distance. Joe looks up in the rearview, Nicky gives him the tiniest nod.

Together, they drive past it.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be just fluff and then it turned into Andy-mortality-angst, I'm not sorry.
> 
> Tumblr @ destatihayati


End file.
